eMusic Also Took Away Right To Download Songs Already Purchased

from the thanks-for-nothing dept

In all the fuss over eMusic's poorly managed plan to sign Sony Music and raise prices at the same time, the company apparently also was able to sneak through another anti-customer move. For years, as an eMusic customer, you were able to go back and access songs you'd previously downloaded. This is, for obvious reasons, a very useful feature -- especially considering the fact that people change computers or lose hard drives and such. However, apparently, along with the price increase, eMusic has quietly dropped this feature as well. It's not clear why they would do this. Perhaps Sony didn't want this, but that doesn't explain why the feature was removed for everyone. It's like eMusic is punishing their loyal customers. The company claims that it will allow people to redownload if there's a technical problem, but the convenience feature is just gone.

From their terms of service:
"6.13 eMusic may allow you to re-download each of your previously purchased tracks a limited number of times for any technical reasons at no additional charge; nonetheless, if you exceed a reasonable number of re-downloads (as deemed by eMusic) on any given track(s), you will be required to re-purchase such track(s)."

Uh, eMusic [I'll say this here, as I assume that you are checking in here as you have previously, and do not have the ability to squelch this comment as you have on your own boards] - you'd be very wise to be up front and lock this down to a fixed number instead of a vague, omninous, maybe, sort-of, if we're in the mood to help you policy. You're about to start another sh!tstorm.

reDownloads

They may have done this to prevent people from lending their accounts out to friends, family, etc, to reduce piracy. More than likely this is the recording industry doing its we want you to pay for this multiple times, and statistical analysis shows that 50% of the people redownload more than 4 times in a three year period.

There are better ways to prevent/discorage piracy, like micro fees (1/10th - 1/2 cent) for each redownload, stated in the TOS. The line "To cover bandwidth costs" should have been used.

It is never a good idea to change the games rules half way through, unless its to the users advantage .....

190 entry/note) Unlimited redownloads

191) Fee for redownload set by artist/company.

192) Fee for redownload never increases and is tied to the person who downloaded the file.

193 ) Fee For Redownload can be decreased by artist/company/copyright holder

194 ) fee for redownload can be between 0 and the current value of the file to be downloaded, never above current value.

Does the music you get from eMusic have DRM in it? If not, then I don't see how stopping people from redownloading what they have purchased would curb piracy as they can just share the files via email/FTP/USB Flash etc.

Re: Re: reDownloads

That was actually Sarcasm and the lead up to .....

"More than likely this is the recording industry doing its we want you to pay for this multiple times, and statistical analysis shows that 50% of the people redownload more than 4 times in a three year period."

Which is what we all think is going on here. More than likely in a couple months they will remove the ability to redownload altogether.

Re: Re: Re: reDownloads

Re:

Also, the change hasn't happened yet. eMusic has said the Sony thing will occur in "early July". As far as I can tell the download policy hasn't changed yet.

Of course, since music comes and goes to eMusic like the wind, there are already tons of things I can't re-download that I've bought over the years, but I'm a compulsive backup-er, so it's not a problem for me.

I've used it a few times out of convenience, but never out of necessity.

eMusic

Well, I am done with eMusic.
Never to be used again.
Now that Sony is calling the shots and turning them completely anti-consumer.
They should have known better than to make any deals with Sony at all aside from possibly "we share all of your music at our current prices and all of our current features -- or take a hike".
I know they claim that all of their other changes have nothing to do with Sony, but how stupid do they think consumers are? (don't answer that ;) )
Pulling Sony on at all already felt like a slap to the face.
There are other sources and they will be used now.
And also thank gawd for RIAARadar.

so boycott eMusic already

really, if musicians do not care enough about their fans than to leave them at the mercy of the same old monopolistic corporations and their willing agents, then screw them and go find musicians that connect directly and make their music directly available

there are virtually no barriers to entry to becoming a musician, you can find them everywhere, if you don't like the abuse then find someone who cares, otherwise you are just another perpetual victim always seeking a new dysfunctional abusive relationship, good fans finding bad music outlets, life is too short

They may or may not have even made a change, as their own documentation at their site is contradicting and lends itself to confusion. (see my links to the pages I found above).

Mike - What was your source for this story? You only link back to the other, previous post...

At any rate, the only real issue here is the lack of clarity on the behalf of eMusic with this in light of the other changes taking place. It is not really unreasonable to limit the number of times a tangible [to use the term loosely] item may be re-downloaded.

TechDirt is Wrong; Re-downloads still exist

Techdirt - Do you check your facts?

They changed the way that you see them/get to them. You go to your profile->downloads page as before to see the list of previously downloaded items. There is a link to the Album page. There you will see the tracks you have already downloaded with a link to re-download them.

I understand from emusic customer service chat that this is temporary while they fix the download history.